One-Eyed Ogre
One-Eyed Ogre Trigrams: 16 points Hexagrams: 32 points Armaments: Languages: Chinese, Manchu. Notable Equipment and Resources: Horse-Cutting Saber (5 taels): Horse-cutting sabers are the biggest of the big swords, typically measuring about five feet in length. Supposedly designed as anti-cavalry swords for Chinese soldiers fighting off mounted invaders, One-Eyed Ogre is well aware of the irony in choosing one as his weapon of choice. Scatterguns (12 taels): Liu keeps a pair of double-barreled hand scatterguns on his belt, which he uses like pistols. They pack quite the punch. Grenades (1500 cash):'' Liu normally keeps three fragmentation grenades on his person, for special occasions. They are usually plainly displayed on the same harness that straps his sword to his back and his guns to his waist. It's an incredibly menacing harness. Hook Swords (4 taels): For those rare occasions when he is divested of his normal rig of weapons, Liu keeps a pair of collapsing hook swords under his coat. Brigandine Vest (2 tael): A vest of lightweight steel plates sandwiched between two layers of antiballistic silk, this vest both makes it eaiser for Liu to obscure his true gender and to survive getting shot at. Both of these are regular problems, given his lifestyle. It affords 1 points of armor, and imposes a -1 penalty on Evasion, Stealth, Acrobatics, and Athletics checks. Horse: Liu stole this horse when he first fled home. His name is Firebrand, and he is approximately 50% as ill-tempered as his owner (which is still pretty ill-tempered). Life Savings: One Eyed Ogre has invested nearly all of his wealth into guns, bombs, and swords, and as such, has only a few copper coins rattling in his pocket. Talents: '''Boxing Style! Black Tiger' One-Eyed Ogre has studied Black Tiger boxing, a hand to hand style that emphasizes physical conditioning and aggressive strikes. It grants a +2 bonus to unarmed damage and +1 to unarmed accuracy. Rain of a Thousand Arrows! Requirements Sharpshooting 4 You can take aim and fire at multiple targets simultaneously. By spending a point of Breath, you may make two simultaneous ranged attacks when wielding two single-handed ranged weapons. When using thrown weapons (such as throwing knives or chakrams), you may continue to spend extra points of Breath to throw more than two weapons; thus, you could spend four points of Breath to throw five knives in a single round. Untrained: No. Trap the Sword and Shatter the Blade! Requirements: Melee: 3 You can bind a foe's weapon in combat, leaving them unarmed. Make an opposed melee roll; if successful, you may either disarm your foe, sending their weapon falling to the ground, or sunder their weapon, leaving it broken and useless. By spending a point of Breath, you may use this talent as a counter attack, disarming or sundering your foes weapon immediately after successfully parrying a melee attack. Gentleman Returns the Gift! Requirements: Explosives: 2 You can hurl live grenades back at their senders before they go off. When you are the central target of an Explosives attack made with a grenade and you pass your Evasion check to dodge, you may spend a point of Breath to hurl the grenade back before it goes off, making a free Explosives check with that weapon. Untrained: No. Black Whirlwind! Requirements: Fortitude 2 By spending a point of Breath, you may enter a fearsome battle rage, granting you a +1 to all attack and initiative rolls, but a -1 to all awareness and evasion rolls. General Terrifies the Enemy! Bravado: 2 You can make Bravado checks in combat to startle foes, weakening their defenses. Spend a point of Breath, and make an opposed Bravado against your target as a free action; for every success you have over them, subtract one coin from all rolls they make on the following round. Face of a Demon! Requirements: Fortitude 1 You both look tough and are tough. You may add your Fortitude skill ranks to your Bravado total. Furious Bluster! Requirements: Bravado 1 When others call you on your deception, you are quick to shout them down. Whenever you fail a Deception check, you may immediately spend a point of Breath to make a Bravado (also opposed by the target's Empathy) to keep your target from calling you on your lies. Biography: Liu Zheng is a man's man: a man of honor and loyalty, of wrath and fury, of justice and righteousness. A man of actions. Quick to anger, ready to fight, and intolerable of any perceived injustice in the world. He embodies the the type of masculinity thought lost in the world, hearkening back to the heroes of the Water Margin and ages past. But Liu Zheng was not always such a man. This paragon of masculinity was born a woman. Born into a Mongolian Bannerman's household on the northern frontier, Abahai was raised amongst military drills and play at arms. Like all proper Manchurian girls, she could ride a horse before she could walk. Her father, an arms instructor at a garrison, saw that she was adroit with saber, musket, and bow. As a young girl, her life was little different from that of a boy's on the frontier. Yet, when she came of age, Abahai learned another fate awaited her: she had been placed in an arranged marriage to a man she had never met, a lieutenant in the Bordered Yellow Banner. She was told that he came from a powerful family, and the marriage would greatly improve her own family's position. Outraged at the thought of being used like a chess piece in a political alliance, Abahai stole a horse in the night, fled south, and never looked back. Frustrated at the unfair lot handed down to women in a patriarchal world, Abahai adopted the guise of a man and took a Chinese to conceal her past. The new identity flourished, and soon Abahai was a memory of Liu Zheng, Liu's biologic sex was but an unfortunate accident of birth. Appearance: Liu Zheng appears to be a young man wearing a large array of weapons and an eyepatch made from a silver coin. He usually wears an armored vest of brigandine, which helps conceal his biological sex. Personality: Liu is incredibly loud, incredibly short-tempered, and incredibly frightening. He is the quintessential hot-blooded knight errant: brash, unrestrained, and quick to anger, with a shoot first and ask questions later mentality. He is ultimately motivated by a nostalgic understanding of chivalry; an idealization of a “simpler times” past era when knight-errants and heroic outlaws were the champion of the day. He considers himself fully a man, rejecting the cruel trick that Heaven played on him by putting him in a woman's body. Playstyle: Liu's primary combat is on close-quarters combat, well-suited to rushing into the fray with sword drawn or guns blazing. He can also be effective in social situations, where his incredibly intimidating manner can subdue foes and make for a harsh sort of diplomacy.